This proposal concerns the second stage of a three stage research project. The first stage, already completed, entailed the construction of a system that is grounded in people's experiencing of old age. The third stage will relate that system to major parameters in the system's environment (i.e., local governmental policies and decisions, etc.). In this second stage, our objective is to extensively investigate the life-satisfaction component of the system initiated in the previous stage. That is, we intend to investigate the Sources and consequences associated with high vs. low morale among the elderly. The data source for this investigation is the responses from 513 interviews with persons sixty and older who reside in Kansas City, Kansas. The analysis already completed utilized responses to the "open-ended" questions. The previous analysis consisted in part of thirteen indices of various attitudes and experiences of older people. Some of the information in the proposed study will be used to create additional indices for the system (life-satisfaction, social mobility, religiosity, and household composition). In order to test the unidimensional and cumulative properties of these indices, we will apply Guttman scaling procedures. Other questions will be used to strengthen three indices constructed for the previous study (health, ability to cope with problems, and condition of neighborhood), which also will be scaled. The remaining questions will be entered into the system as separate variables (geographic boundaries of friendship networks, immediate needs, most rewarding activities). As in the previous study, the system will be analyzed using step-wise multiple regression procedures. In addition to the quantative dimension, the open-ended questions provide a wealth of qualitative information which will enable us to consider the individual attitudes, needs, goals, and motivations of people in our sample.